Hi,
I am back with an account of our trip to Mahabaleshwar on our Royal Enfield.
Anagha and me started from Chinchwadgaon at 6:30 AM on 29th Sep ( Saturday). It was a clear weather and we were looking forward to our first halt at Wai, en route to Mahabaleshwar, which is about 120 KM's from Pune and 135 KM's from Chinchwad.
We travelled through Chandani Chowk, through the Katraj new tunnel, via Shirval.
Wai is a small town, 34 KM's before Mahabaleshwar. It is a serene town, with a flavour of village. It has a beautiful Ganesha temple on the bank of river Krishna, which was built in 1762. The idol of Lord Ganesh is huge, about 10+ feet in height. Just next to it is Shivji's temple, again built around the same time. The building patterns are quite similar.
Both these temples are built by Sardar Raste, who was a prominent courtesan during the Peshwa reign.
About 2.5 KM's from Wai is Menavali,which we visited after a good break at Wai. Menavali has the residence of Nana Phadnavis, the legal counsel of the Peshwas.
We visited his residence, a part of which is now a museum. Behind the residence, is a very serene "ghat" on the bank of river Krishna. A major part of the movie "Swades" was shot around this area.
After spending some time there, we resumed our journey and reached Mahabaleshwar at about 11:30 AM.
As soon as you enter in the township, the agents from various hotels / resorts will hover around you , forcing you to go with them and check out accomodation options. My personal suggestion is that it is quite unnecessary. There are plenty of options, within and in the outskirts of the market place.
This was the off season, so the hotels were charging about Rs. 500/- per day for a couple acco, in the market place area. In the outskirts, the charges couls go up to 700 - 800 in a decent resort or up to 2500/- in a hotel like Gautam. There are plenty of options available on the Mahabaleshwar - Tapola road, and also on the L.C. D'Souza Road. I would suggest that one scouts around the place a bit, one will surely find a place to his/her liking and budget options.
We stayed at Hotel Mayfair, which is an old parsi bunglow, converted in to a hotel. It has about 13 rooms, with double and family occupancy. This hotel offers the option of lodging and boarding with them, with good food and even better service.
They charged us 700/- per day for a double occupancy , inclusive of the breakfast which was an a la carte menu, along with the usual western breakfast.
On the day one, we rested ourselves after checking in the hotel and then spent some time at the Wilson Point. Mahabaleshwar has plenty of such points, if one is interested. However, the look and feel of each one is almost the same and it can become monotonous beyond a point.
Hence we had planned to make it a REAL holiday by taking it easy. We did spend a lot of time at the wilson point and soaked in the beauty around us. The weather was very pleasant. We returned to the market for dinner and decided to call the day.
Day two, we had planned to visit Tapola. After a heavy breakfast at the hotel, we started for Tapola, which is about 26-27 KM's from Mahabaleshwar. The road is very picturesqe and refreshing. Tapola is a part of the backwarters of Koyna dam, called Shivsagar. The expance is huge. There are various options of rides in the water available: Water scooters, speed boats, motor boats and rowing boats. We took a ride in the motor boat, along with another family. It was a two hour tour through the lake, with the visit to one Dutta Mandir. The time was really well spent.
We returned back to Mahabaleshwar by about 3:00 PM, had lunch and then slept off. The evening was spent in the market place , window shopping. Though we didn't buy much, the market has many shops offering various mementoes and gifts to be taken back home. The costs are reasonable. Also, the speciality is the jelly sweets. One thing that you should not miss while in Mahabaleshwar is " Strawberry n Cream". It's a mouth watering delicacy, which we tried at many places but found the one at "Bagicha" the best. It's a dessert and snacks shop in the market place and the stuff is really good.
Day three, we started for Pratapgad, about 22 KM's from Mahabaleshwar. The road is winding with lots of bends. The condition is OK. On the way, we saw a lot of waterfalls, although monsoon was over. We could take the bike up to the base of the fort. There is a guide service available at the charge of Rs. 80/-.
They show various points of the fort and help you navigate. ot a bad idea to hire one. The fort has about 475 steps, but it is not tiring. There is a temple of Goddess Bhavani on the fort, and the idol is really beautiful. Both me and Anagha thought that it was the best place on the fort.
There is also an handicraft exhibition on the fort, where one can buy mementos. The families living on the fort offer home made food and one can savour it post the tour of the fort.
We, however came back to the town and then took the rest of the day off.
Evening was spent doing some shopping and roaming around the market place.
Next day we started back for Pune at about 9:30 AM and reached home by 2:00 PM, after a nice lunch at "Purepur Kolhapur" in the Pune city.
Happy Riding :)
You can check out our snaps at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/anaghadev/TripToMahabaleshwar
